The Warrior
by ElMarquis
Summary: Harry was born and chose to become a warrior. What happens when the battle ends, the music winds down and body is carted away? The East beckons, a highly trained soldier thrust deeply into enemy lands amongst warriors. One-shot may continue.


_S.B.T to ABWPD_

_Dark Lord_

_and (?) Harry Potter_

Suddenly, everything became clear, like a mist lifting off the land. Sirius mentioning guarding a weapon. The prophecy could really only talk about one thing. The death of Lord Voldemort. Harry was guarded by the Order of the Phoenix. Harry was the weapon. Sirius was trying to get it through his thick skull that Dumbledore was using him as a weapon.

Dancing through a hail of curses, Harry slashed his wand at the Death Eater, pleased as a scythe of light blasted through his shield. Though the cutting curse was now blunted, it slammed him into the wall with a wince-inducing thud. Beside him, Sirius disarmed Rookwood and bound him in chains.

Seeing Sirius about to be hit by a flying curse from Bellatrix, he blasted him aside with a banishing charm and raced after the crazed witch spitting deadly curses, mainly high-powered piercers, bludgeoning hexes and cutting curses until he nailed her with a bludgeoning hex which smashed her into one of the walls of the atrium.

Harry suddenly sensed a far more sinister presence and immediately began launching a hail of spellfire, what he didn't have in knowledge was easily made up for with power and speed. Voldemort was forced to abandon his powerful disillusionment charm and shield as a storm of magic ripped apart the wall behind him and the floor below him.

Wincing slightly as an explosive castration curse of Lily Potter's invention splashed against his shield, Riddle retaliated with a sweeping jet of fire. For the briefest moment, the bombardment ceased, but only for as long as it took Harry to weave a flame-freezing charm around himself.

With a sweeping gesture of his wandless hand, Harry brought the debris into a whirlwind circling him. A flick of his wand turned every brick and rock into a barbed spearhead which raced at Voldemort as he directed his wand toward the snake-like man. A constant stream of the weapons shot at him from the whirlwind.

Pivoting around, Harry summoned the water from the idiotic-looking fountain. In the sixth year, Flitwick taught the students to turn vinegar into wine. For someone like Harry, who hid his true intelligence to cause his enemies to underestimate him, it was easy to reverse the spell. Wine to vinegar. More modifications followed. Water to vinegar. Water to citric acid. Water to sulphuric acid. Water to concentrated sulphuric acid. It was borederline alchemy, but it would be interesting to see how it could be used in battle.

Using his wandless hand to shape the water as he carried it upward in a roiling ball of liquid, he turned it into concentrated sulphuric acid and blasted it at Riddle who screamed as his shield was crushed by it and thousands of drops hit him. Raising his wand above his head with both hands, he directed it tip-down toward Voldemort and screamed an incantation in Ancient Egyptian.

The soul works in frequencies, like a mundane radio. However many times Riddle split his soul, this spell would follow the magical ties to him which bound the Horcruxes to him. He'd guessed Voldemort had used after finding a book in the Black Family Library. It would then wipe out everything in that frequency. No more Horcruxes, even the soul in Riddle's body was obliterated. His scar seeped black goo which he wiped off with a sleeve.

Sweeping the invisibility cloak from his pocket and draping it over him, Harry focused on the feeling he'd got when he apparated onto the school roof aged seven. With a muffled pop, he disapparated.

Tired of being manipulated, being restrained, hiding his true self, Harry had done what everyone expected of him and was leaving.

Walking out of Gringotts the next day, Harry smirked with satisfaction. A great deal of malnutrition caused by the Dursley family had been healed by his dosing with concentrated nutritional potions. The ripping of the wards of Privet Drive from Harry who was powering them caused a massive influx of magic which had helped a great deal and caused massive expansion of his magical core.

Now a good five-foot-ten and lithely built in a dark-blue suit and under a glamour to cause a few changes to his appearance, the Apparent Lord Potter, Earl of Caervenny, Lord Slytherin, Earl of Witlesig, Lord Peverell, Earl de Peveril and Heir Black, Baron Blackmore, he held significant holdings which, now active were going to be bringing in significant income.

The goblins actually _respected_ him! It was something to do with their warrior culture and the fact he had long been a warrior, fighting Voldemort, Slytherin's basilisk, fighting Voldemort two more times and finally killing him. And apparently Dark Lords were bad for business.

For their courtesy, Harry had encouraged them to set up business in the muggle world where there was a lot more money to make, as long as they went under glamours to appear human because small wrinkly beings who have bad tempers apparently end up being cut up in scientists' laboratories. He'd even invested forty percent of the costs for the same level of ownership, though he was leaving it to his team of account managers to manage. They were also getting one percent of his income between the ten of them, so the more they made him, the more they got.

A few months later, he left his comfortable medieval manor house he'd purchased in the Chilterns, staffed by Dobby and Winky who insisted he eat four massive meals a day. Every day, he spent a while swimming lengths of the indoor pool he'd installed in the vaulted cellars. A good run would occur daily and every Sunday he'd trek thirty miles with a backpack of ever-increasing weight. It was tiring, but he was slowly gaining a proper level of fitness.

It took only a few more months for Harry to rapidly gain proper fitness. Learning what martial arts and fencing he could cram into the time had helped immensely, he now moved like a dancer, ever balanced, ever aware of his body and surroundings. But he wasn't keen to stay in Britain. He knew Supreme Manipulator Dumbledore was searching for him.

Having caught up on what little of his non-magical studies he'd missed, having kept up on them via mail at Hogwarts and during his summers, and took a huge number of exams, he decided on a course of action. Enlisting in the British Parachute Regiment had been a good idea initially. Until he found that he'd immediately been pushed onto the SAS/SBS selection course having scored almost perfectly on every part of the selection course for the Paras.

Though Snape had always belittled Harry's Occlumency skills, Voldemort's Horcrux once attached to his scar had been banging at his mental walls for about fifteen years. Its sudden removal had pushed a huge amount of magic into said mental walls. His mind was impenetrable and he had significant mental control and a far better memory. He didn't even need glasses any longer.

Even so, the rough, tough and extremely taxing training/selection for the SAS and SBS took its toll on him, but after half a year, he hadn't succumbed to the pressure, fighting the other candidates to prove his place and fighting the tough training to survive. It finally ended, and he had the sand-coloured beret.

**June 2004**

There were many stories throughout history where militaries created people who didn't exist to raise moral, often in recent decades, they were fighter pilots. Brave, flying exotic machinery that no civilian could ever hope to have, delivering death-blows to the enemy at high speed in the sky.

The Black Prince was one of these. Except he was real.

Upon his retirement from Special Forces as their part in the Sierra Leone Civil War ended, Harry went to the MoD with an idea, an idea they liked. Armed with essentially whatever machinery they liked, attached to the RAF, a small unit of no more than a dozen pilots were the SAS of the sky.

Headed by a MiG-29, with a motley mixture of aircraft behind him, the Black Prince had led the charge into Afghanistan and Iraq, quickly attaining ace status as they tore into the small air forces of the countries. Each jet was converted to run on British engines, avionics and NATO standard-weaponry, British standard if possible. They were a motley mixture of the most modern machinery, the supermaneuverability fighter at their head, followed by four Dassault Rafale fighters, four early Eurofighter Typhoon and three F-16s.

Within days of their entering a warzone, there would be no aerial forces left, on the ground on in the air. Blasted out of the sky, their airfields would be unprotected for deep strikes into enemy territory. The Lancers were made of some of the absolute best British pilots alive.

As it was to become a major part of their systems, magic had to become known. A number of disillusioned first-generation magicals joined the force, using magic to enhance the aircraft. The one member of the ground crew who blabbed about magic found himself in an asylum under the watchful gaze of the devil's minions. Psychiatrists.

With their own support group, the Lancers often operated in black conditions, without official acknowledgement over enemy territory, or other sovereign territory, working with and for special forces on the ground. When a video of the Black Prince's MiG tearing through the Iraqi Air Force was 'leaked', the public grabbed hold of a hero in his exotic machine. Of course the leak was arranged and the video was highly edited for maximum cinematic thrill.

But the Black Prince's identity was never found out. It was a great mystery and hundreds of theories existed. So, of course, when the American armed forces flying divisions came together and invited a number of NATO countries to a huge joint exercise, the RAF replied with a ubiquitous reply, simply detailing necessary facilities and a 'see you there' message.

So a few months later, members of numerous European armed forces along with the Americans were sat on the ground, awaiting the RAF who had given them a time of arrival. Then radar picked them up. Coming out of the sun at supersonic speeds, the formation was of five flights of two aircraft, with the MiG leading them and a Dassault Rafale tailing them.

A few minutes later, they'd circled around and landed in pairs, still topped and tailed by the MiG and a Rafale. Despite many pairs of binoculars focused on them, with shemaghs round their lower faces and black sun-visors on their helmets lowered as they got out of their aircraft, nobody could see who they were. Even their slightly scruffy uniforms, they had no insignia, no ranks, no medal ribbons, the only differences were that a few of the pilots were evidently female.

Inside the crew bus, they peeled off their helmets and shemaghs. Though within the RAF, they all held fairly senior rank, none of them wore their rank slides or medal ribbons, or for that matter any distinguishing marks.

"Well, that was fun." chuckled a heavily moustachioed man.

"Heaven's sake Ian, more time we spend here the more likely our identities get compromised." reprimanded a black-haired woman, leaning on the shoulder of a young, blond-haired man.

"Jeez Louise, you know we aren't going to be doing a whole lot more operations." interjected a tall, lithely built man with unruly raven hair, emerald eyes and a number of old scars criss-crossing his face. Upon first seeing Wing Commander Potter, you'd start running. Custom sidearm under his flying overalls which lay open, the sleeves tied around his waist, a large knife slung in his waistband and several scars running across his face. But the roguish grin directed at Lydia offset that, and the mischievous twinkle in his eyes didn't help but compromise his hardened soldier look.

"Hmmph, we don't all have the ability to wipe someone's memory in a flick of their hand." she harrumphed; "Back me up on this Bobby."

The blond-haired pilot simply chuckled.

Piling out of the crew bus, they walked into the mess hall that was serving as the briefing room, a couple of them smoking pipes and cigars as they pointedly ignored military regulations and fire regulations.

"Ah yes, your Air Vice Marshal said the Lancers would be coming over." stated an American officer with far more medal ribbons than necessary, a sign that the Americans were still handing out medals for helping a mate to the front of the meal-serving queue.

If he expected genuflecting at the mention of the senior RAF officer, he'd come to the wrong unit. Instead all he got was a mocking silence and one of them picking his finger-nails with an SAS fighting knife.

"Well, welcome to the NATO Joint Aerial Exercises Event, I hope you enjoy yourselves." he added after the mocking silence became too much.

"Don't worry, we will." commented the black-haired, scarred male who had tucked away his knife, puffing contentedly on his pipe.

At first the American was ready to call them on their arrogance, and then remembered that it had taken less than a week to wipe out the Iraqi and Taliban Afghan air forces. And when the ground forces overran the airfields, they got the wreckage and the few intact grounded aircraft and took them back to Britain, rebuilt and restored them before displaying them around their airbase. The Taliban Afghan air force had been a few antique supersonic jets, some helicopters and civilian aircraft, but it was still a danger to ground forces, while the Iraqi Air Force had been somewhat larger, but only fielding about a hundred aircraft.

Now those which weren't shot down and utterly destroyed were on display around the Lancers' airfield, having been rebuilt or un-buried.

"Well, your first few hours here will be acclimatisation, then tomorrow morning exercises, BEGIN." the officer said dramatically to a mass rolling of eyes from the RAF contingent who waited for the introduction to end before packing back into the crew bus and heading over to their assigned accommodations.

"So how're we handling this?" asked John Hawkins, the blond-haired pilot and other half of Louise Delaney.

"By twos." the Black Prince replied, his emerald eyes twinkling madly; "Ian, you usually tail the formation, I lead. This time Louise, John you're flight one, stay low in your Eurofighters." Turning to another pair, Mark Anderson and Jake Rogers, he continued; "You're to cover flight one as flight two with your Rafales, if anybody picks on flight one, you're to jump them and take them down before swapping roles."

The four nodded and went off to their own table in their accommodation's common room.

"Next, Bill, Richard patrol up to ten-thousand feet with your F-16s, you'll be on fighting other aviators in similar aircraft, but yours are better, and you are better. Jane take your Rafale and Mary with the last F-16 patrol above ten-thousand feet." he added; "Ian take your Rafale and cover Keiran and Tom in their Eurofighters. As usual, I'll lone wolf."

Each group dispersed to their table to formulate plans as Harry looked on with a great deal of pride, the best British single-seat fighter pilots of the last few decades were in a single room and raring to go.

About an hour later, they were all wearing their gear, faces hidden behind sun-visors and shemaghs as they climbed into their fighters, the Black Prince taking off first followed in pairs by the rest and finally Ian, the most experienced of them who tailed the pack.

With a Shostakovich symphony playing in the cockpit of his MiG, Harry went into a near-vertical climb with full afterburner as his radar picked up an aircraft which wasn't an RAF one as they all had transmitters which registered as a different colour on his screen.

Arming the laser weapons they were using to imitate dogfights, he kept climbing until he was a good bit higher and still not spotted by the aircraft ahead that he'd identified as a Luftwaffe Tornado. Dropping into a shallow dive, starboard wing low, he closed to a few hundred yards and let loose a 'burst' on the laser weapon which replaced real cannon-fire for the exercises.

Rolling over onto the aircraft's back, he screamed past the nose of the 'stricken' Tornado and pushed downward into a steep dive, pleased to note that the 'fire computer' for the exercises had recorded the first 'kill'. Scanning his radar, Harry picked up another bogey, this time an American F/A-18 which spotted him fairly quickly at about seven-thousand feet.

Snapping over on its side, the American pulled back hard on the stick and turned hard. Bad move. A supermaneuverability fighter was not to be engaged in a dogfight. Turning tighter, Harry felt the g-forces wrenching at him, but kept his eyes on the gunsight and let loose a long burst on the laser-cannon-replacement. Staying on the tail of the F/A-18, he repeated the attack several times until the computer registered his second 'kill'.

Sustaining radio silence, he climbed up to about ten-thousand feet, joining Jane and Mary, codename and callsign Valkyrie-One and Valkyrie-Two just as a gaggle of F-14s jumped them.

The Rafale, Valkyrie-One broke formation and pulled back hard, looping straight onto the tail of a Tomcat which was swiftly dispatched with a 'guided missile', again a figment of the computers used for the exercise, so it dropped out of the fight to the holding zone for 'shot down' aircraft. Valkyrie-Two in her F-16 was furiously dodging attacks from a second F-14 when it and a third one a few hundred yards away both received 'missiles' from the MiG which swooped past them at supersonic speeds, jiggling them a bit in his wash.

Dropping down to two-thousand feet, Harry's radar picked up another target, and he arrived just in time to see Ian dispatching a Luftwaffe Eurofighter.

Waggling his wings, Harry began climbing, not particularly steeply but still adding a few thousand feet. A pair of F/A-18s descended out of the sky to hit him, but instead their 'gunfire' hit air as he wrenched back on the stick, going into a Cobra maneuver to bleed off speed. With the aircraft near-upside-down, he poured on power and took off in the opposite direction to the F/A-18s.

Jerking the stick over and back, he turned on his side and turned to face the aircraft which were turning to face him and dispatched the further one with a 'missile' and raced after the second, hitting it with two 'missiles'.

Seeing that they'd lost both Bill and Richard in their F-16s to a sustained and outnumbering attack by a joint Franco-American attack, Harry climbed to ten-thousand feet and began scanning his radar while flying a squares pattern to cover their battlefield.

It didn't take long to find a pair of Dassault Mirages of the French Air Force which both fell to air-to-air 'missiles'. A final 'missile' brought down one of a formation of F-16s while he raked the entire group with gunfire though none were 'kills'. Diving out of the fight with a lot of angry Americans chasing after them, he managed to evade them and managing to get one to 'shoot down' his fellow with a guided missile.

After a while sat on the ground bored, Harry changed to the Dvorak New World Symphony and took off again, 'rearmed'. Picking up Valkyrie-One after her teammate had been 'shot down', they went looking for trouble. Rearmed and raring to go, they found the formation of F-16s again and left only one in the game after it managed to dive away, with three others heading to the holding zone to land at the airfield, 'shot down'.

Ian joined them in a sustained dogfight with Swedish Gripens after a massive attack of Italians on his three-man formation in which they accounted for themselves well but still 'lost' two aircraft. With about a dozen of the agile little fighters swarming all over them, Valkyrie-One and the Black Prince welcomed him with open arms, two Gripens being 'shot down' with gunfire within minutes of his joining the fight.

A minute later two RAF Eurofighters screamed down toward them, firing 'missiles' and burst of 'cannon-fire', leaving the Swedes on a level with them in terms of numbers. Intelligently, they turned tail and ran away. Harry pursued them and dropped one with his last two 'missiles' before he dropped out of the formation back to the airfield and rearmament.

Climbing back into the sky, he had to pull into a hard rolling turn to port as three Gripens jumped him taking off. Evading their 'missiles' and 'cannon-fire', he pulled into a vertical climb and applied afterburner. A minute later, the flight of small fighters were set upon from behind by an avenging MiG going far faster than they were. Three consecutively launched 'missiles' left them heading for the runway and the 'shot down' group.

Valkyrie-One, Jane Hardy, Valkyrie-Three, Louise Delaney, Griffin-One, Ian Prior joined him at fifteen-thousand feet and stooged around for a while until they picked up a flight of German Phantoms. Coming hard and fast out of the sun from above, they attacked in shallow dives across the three-jet flight, Harry circling around to hit them again and again until the aircraft were recorded as 'killed'.

Mark Anderson and Jake Rogers, callsigns Earl and Duke were still out there, with the group having 'lost' six, Bill White, callsign Cowboy, Richard Bond, callsign Indian, Mary Lewis, callsign Valkyrie-Two, John Hawkins, callsign Housewife, Keiran Sherwood, callsign Outlaw and Tom Major, callsign Minister.

Falling back from the head of the formation of four aircraft, Harry drew alongside Ian before kicking his aircraft over and falling away upside down. Getting the non-verbal message, he accelerated to the head of the flight.

Harry tuned through a variety of radio channels until he picked up a lot of excited Italian chatter. His years in special forces hadn't been wasted, he'd continued to learn magic from around the world and many languages. Including Italian. With one of the custom systems developed for the Lancers, he traced the babble and found a group of Italian aircraft swarming all over an American flight.

Not that he minded them killing each-other, but Harry rapidly fired off five 'missiles', having already fired three at the Swedes. Of the five launched, apparently he managed to get six kills. Smirking to himself, he dropped through the formation from above, blazing away at an F-15 to great effect. Climbing back up from below, Harry sprayed the air through which an Italian Eurofighter and then a pursuing Fighting Falcon raced, getting them both.

Ian had broken radio silence and negotiated a brief truce with the Swedish who, now respecting the rather motley crew of RAF pilots, decided to join forces with them. Harry was joined by five Lancers and six Swedish Air Force Gripens who quickly decimated the Italian and American fighters who were still scrapping before each Lancer claimed a Gripen for his or her self.

All is fair in love and war.

Dropping away again to refuel and 'rearm', Harry wasn't up when the entire delegation from the Luftwaffe descended on the Lancers. Despite a furious defence which caused a good number of the Germans to drop out of the fight, only Ian was still in the game when he returned to the fight.

Old friends who'd both been SAS troopers, he'd mentored Harry when he was unexpectedly thrown into the SAS, now known to be on the manipulations of MI6, both moving to reserves at the same time and joining the RAF. They had memorised every party trick the other had, in the air and on the ground.

Harry tore through the formation of Tornadoes, Typhoons and Phantoms, blazing away until the computer told him his cannon was empty. Switching to the unguided rockets in the centreline pod, a custom choice of armament he had, he emptied all eighteen of them into various parts of the group followed by guided missiles.

With Ian flying in from above and the far side from him, and Harry climbing toward them and from the opposite direction to Ian, they hit all of the Luftwaffe aircraft to put them in 'unflyable' condition according to the exercise computers.

Both of them had to rearm on the ground before heading back up. The Italians, the Germans, the Americans and the French were out. A formation of six Turkish F-16s had the bad luck to encounter Ian and Harry who were somewhat irritated that they'd been put up against massively overwhelming forces, often dozens against one or two.

A 'missile' from each and a strafe-run left the Turks heading for the airfield, their delegation 'shot down'. The next to encounter the hunting Lancers were a group of Spaniards in F/A-18s and Eurofighters.

Attacking from above and below, they both shot off two 'missiles' each and a good number of 'cannon-shells' and after a protracted dogfight, 'downed' the Spanish squadron.

"See the antiques." Harry chuckled, breaking radio silence as they spotted a group of Polish Su-22 fighters, though he made a hand-gesture to above and behind the Sukhoi fighters. MiG-29s and F-16s.

"Indeed, do you think we could buy them for our museum." chuckled Ian as he peeled back and raced upward.

Harry dived for the Su-22s, knowing he'd get jumped any moment. The bait knew they were around but didn't have a chance to evade as he used the remainder of his 'cannon-shells'. Peeling back, he saw two flights of MiG-29s and F-16s shoot past. Loosing two 'missiles', he got them both on-target before looping around and chasing after Ian who had sprayed the rear of the formation with 'cannon-fire'.

Loosing his last three 'missiles', Harry dropped out of the fight, soon followed by Ian, though not before he fired his last 'cannon-shells' and 'shot down' the last of the fighters which had been escorting the Su-22s. Once again dropping out of the fight to refuel and rearm, they were in the air within minutes again.

Only the Canadians left.

Their CF-18 Hornets put up a good fight, causing 'damage' to both Ian and Harry, eventually causing the former to drop out of the fight too badly 'damaged' to continue, but not before he loosed all of his 'missiles'. Fighting four-on-one, Harry steadily eliminated them one-by-one, dodging attacks and responding with great enthusiasm until he was the last aircraft in the game. No others were left.

Suddenly, as he was coming in to land, he realised it was nearly nightfall and his body, though he was extremely fit, was aching and tired. Leaning back and turning off Shostakovich's tenth symphony, he taxied up to the stand and slowly shut down the aircraft.

The RAF ground crew sent over towed him into a hanger and propped up a ladder, down which Harry climbed. They would get a meal delivered to their accommodations and debrief on the exercise in the morning.

For two weeks, the RAF team were up before dawn, going out over the American desert to practice dogfighting amongst themselves as they were furious that anyone had been able to shoot them down. Then lessons with some of each country's best pilots and tacticians took up the rest of the days.

Ian and Harry were making their rounds of the casinos and seeing how much they could fleece off them (quite a lot) when they heard a bit of yelling and a semi-familiar voice screaming. Racing around the corner to a dark alley, they caught sight of a couple of female Luftwaffe airwomen being molested by a gang of men.

Two Fairbairn-Sykes knives dropped into Harry's hands from sleeve sheaths. Hurling them hard, he quickly left two squealing on the ground with the blades stuck deep in their shoulders. Ian drew his custom PPK as he followed Harry around the corner and raised it as Harry drew his MEUSOC M1911, both firing rapidly. None of their shots were fatal, but they would be feeling them for a while.

With their magazines empty, they each holstered their weapons. Harry was just walking over to untie the three women when a load of shady looking men raced around the corner. Glancing at Ian, conveying a message in just one look, he lowered his body into a fighting stance. If he'd not wiped the DoD computers and several minds, he'd have been high on their list of the most deadly soldiers in the world.

Lashing out with a boot, he knocked one to his knees before striking him on the temple with an elbow before grabbing a second with that arm and hurling him into a wall. Hard. There was no Hollywood theatrics, taunting or spinning dramatic fighting. He tore into them, sending men into unconsciousness and probably hospital, none of them wanting to use their firearms and those with knives were swiftly removed of them, usually followed by having them jammed into them.

With them down, Harry and Ian pulled off their overcoats. Underneath were desert combats, and unusually, they were wearing their rank slides, medal ribbons, and had their berets in their pockets. The first servicemen since Field Marshal Montgomery to have two cap badges, RAF badges and the SAS badge. They had decided though to only wear one at a time, so the beige berets came out and the SAS servicemen came to the surface, trained and deadly. Reloading his pistol, Harry covered them as Ian retrieved his knives and cut open the ropes that the untrained idiots had used to bind and gag the three women.

"Just shoot the bastards, they don't deserve anything less." Ian grunted at Harry, being a father with a daughter not a whole lot different in appearance to these women had made him... slightly irritated.

"No, I want to find out what they intended, whether this was a gang-rape or a targeted kidnapping of NATO military personnel." said Harry sharply; "While I was feeling awfully tempted to have made my shots fatal, you can't interrogate a corpse... or rather interrogate a corpse and get useful information."

"Hmmph, they're lucky you're here or they'd be dead." he grunted as he cut the last of the women free.

"Hey cheer up, they might not all survive." Harry added, making Ian look inordinately pleased; "And I might give you one to interrogate later."

A group of police cars screeched up, causing Ian to rise, gun raised.

"Check fire!" Harry barked as he lowered his own weapon and strode out of the alleyway to delay the police as long as possible until Ian could phone the American Military Police.

Flicking on the safety, he didn't bother holstering it as he caught one of his knives thrown to him by Ian.

"Good evening gentlemen." he said, putting on his smoothest British accent.

"Uh, yes sir, erm, we were sent on the report of multiple gunshots in this block." stuttered the police commander, who was ready for a shoot-out but suddenly set off-balance by the exceedingly calm but extremely intimidating looking special forces operator.

"Ah yes, I'll probably need the military attaché from Washington and the Military Police from Nellis AFB." Harry replied; "I don't want to have caused an international incident gunning down American citizens in the Vegas Strip. Don't worry, they're alive and I don't shoot people without provocation."

"Uh, could you come to the station with us and give your statement." continued the police commander more confidently.

"Of course." Harry said disarmingly, but made no move to go with them.

"And, uh, you'll have to surrender your weapons." added the commander with an awful lot less confidence as a flat glare was turned on him.

"I'm afraid that's a problem, special forces never surrender their weapons. To anyone." Ian said, walking up behind Harry, his own PPK in his hand and one of the women, who couldn't walk leaning on him; "Want an M4?" he asked Harry.

"Sure." Harry replied and holstered his pistol, grabbing the thrown rifle and easily running a quick check on it; "My car's just around the corner, we'll head back to Nellis, get the CO and the MPs, maybe phone the embassy and the attaché there. Are the prisoners secure."

"I zip-tied the lot, hopefully none will die before I get to interrogate them." Ian replied.

Harry brushed past the police, returning about five minutes later in a hired Bentley Arnage into which Ian helped the Luftwaffe women before climbing in himself.

"Wait sir, aren't you going to answer our questions." said one of the police officers.

"Just secure the prisoners until the MPs get here, and to answer your question... Noooo." Harry replied, extending the negative answer mockingly, having passed a piece of paper to the cop, a copy of his diplomatic immunity and CIA clearance.

With a loud roar from the engine, the luxury car took off from the kerb far faster than was legally safe, but he was perfectly aware that he had diplomatic immunity after doing a series of jobs for the CIA some years before and that the cops wouldn't want to annoy him. Military guys get annoyed went jumped up civilians try to cause problems. Especially intimidating special forces guys.

"Well, that was most interesting." Harry stated to Ian as he jerked the car around a corner, causing it to wallow horrifically.

"Do you have to drive like this?" groaned Ian.

"Best way to avoid roadside bombs and ambushes." Harry replied, changing up a gear.

"This isn't fucking Iraq." Ian stated.

"I'm still alive aren't I?" Harry asked; "People have been trying to kill me up to my first birthday and then on from my eleventh."

"You're an utter moron aren't you." chuckled the elder man.

"Actually when I last did an IQ test I got something on the low-level genius levels." Harry chuckled, swerving around a moron in a Toyota Prius which had offended him with its presence; "God dammit why did the car hire company have the low-powered version."

"What's wrong?" asked Ian.

"The one I use as a runabout at home has a hundred-and-seventy mile-per-hour top speed and an acceleration of 5.5 seconds to sixty _as standard_ and I tuned it to hell. This is about as fast as that yacht I keep for sailing up the Rhine." Harry replied, glancing in the mirror at the women huddled in the back, he was a touch worried as one of them seemed to be going into shock.

"Your T model I heard you got nicked doing a hundred and ninety." Ian chuckled, exchanging a glance with Harry.

"It was an honest mistake, I forgot that the British don't do unlimited autobahns and I'd been in Germany for about six months." Harry replied.

A car jumped a set of lights which were set for him to go, crossing across the bows of the Bentley. Grabbing the handbrake, he jerked it into a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn, slid the wheel around and slammed the gearbox into reverse. Racing backwards, he twisted the wheel around as he lifted off the accelerator suddenly. The handbrake-turn followed by J-turn was executed perfectly.

"Hate to rub it in your face, but diplomatic immunity is awesome." Harry smirked as he continued racing through Las Vegas toward the airbase.

Apparently this was enough to get one of the German women, a blonde with stormy grey eyes, to come out of their self-imposed muteness;

"I don't know if you realise, but I started this sentence more than a minute ago." she said in a thick German accent.

"_Actually_ _you didn't darling, as the speed of sound is seven-hundred and sixty-one point two miles an hour and I'm only doing a hundred and eleven, you're only about two metres behind me, thus with the speed of sound being three-hundred and forty point two-nine metres a second, thus it took about 5 to six milliseconds._" he replied in fluent German; _"Though that is a flawed calculation as with the windows open, the airflow in here is not going to be the same as it would be sat still without air-con."_

"_You're crazy._" she stated.

"_Probably, but I claim it as a defence mechanism and not being completely sane when I was put with a lot of very insane individuals. After all would anyone sane join the SAS._" Harry chuckled.

"For heaven's sake wolf-boy, stop speaking a language I don't speak." Ian commented, using the insulting nickname used for Harry when he'd first joined the SAS and given the codename wolf.

Harry just gave him a disapproving look at his cultural self-limitation and then turned his gaze back to the road.

"_We're nearly back at Nellis, I've got some fairly powerful brandy that should get your friends out of shock._" he said absently, undertaking a stream of traffic; "_By the way, I don't remember the Luftwaffe employing female pilots._"

"_They don't._" scowled the woman who wasn't in shock; "_We fight, how do you say; tooth and nail, to get into that position, we're all weapons systems officers but even then suffer from a great deal of sexism._"

"Idiots." Harry muttered loudly as he made the sharp turn into the entrance road, the car drifting. He drew to a halt at the guardhouse and waved his ID before racing in and heading over to their accommodations; "Ian, go and get the engraved flask with my coat of arms on it, it'll be by my bunk."

Before Harry was parked, Ian was back with the flask which Harry handed back to the one of the women who wasn't in shock.

After taking an unladylike gulp, she shuddered as the fiery liquid ran down her throat before forcing a bit down each of her comrades' throats. They coughed and choked before coming out of their mental prisons. Not used to dealing with mental shock much, Harry left it to Ian who had been the team medic when they were soldiering through Iraq.

Leaning against the bonnet, he glanced occasionally at the three in the back and Ian who was knelt next to the open door. Having gone through shock himself a couple of times, he knew what it was like.

"_You okay?_" he asked as the one who had been conversing with him climbed out.

"_Disappointed we had to be rescued like helpless little girls, but otherwise I'm fine, your colleague's just talking the other two out._" she replied.

"_Don't worry, you were heavily outnumbered and unarmed, I never go anywhere without at least two guns and three knives._" said Harry; "_I don't know what happened with you lot, but on one of my first missions, I froze up and was nearly killed for it. Escaped without a scar, but I never did that again._"

"_Thanks._" she said, the first real smile of the evening gracing her features before twisting into a grimace at her name; "_Karin-Nadja Falke. I don't care which of my first names you use, it's a cross my parents gave me to bear._"

"_Don't worry, you're not the only one with a... different... name. Hadrian James Polaris Potter-Black, but I usually go by Harry Potter as I ignore the Black Family side. Idiots were obsessed with stars for names._" Harry chuckled, taking her offered hand.

She managed to completely stifle a gasp as in the sodium lighting, a number of scars became visible. A faint, thin, jagged one coming out of the sideburn next to his right ear and descending to the edge of his jaw. An older lightning bolt over his right eyebrow which extended into a long cut past his eye, across the bridge of his nose and swept down his left cheek and to the edge of his throat. Finally a thin, faded one from the right-hand side of his mouth horizontally slashing across his cheek and disappearing into his hair.

"_I've got used to them._" he stated, noting her widened eyes.

"_If you don't mind me asking, but what caused them, you're RAF aren't you._" Nadja asked, seeing as her reaction wasn't fooling him.

"_Did a few years in Special Forces._" replied Harry before tracing the scar next to his right ear; "_Bad encounter with a roadside bomb._" tracing the lightning-bolt scar and the longer one descending from it; "_Some terrorist trying to kill me as a kid then a bad encounter with a sword-wielding maniac. Killed them both._" then he traced the thin scar from his mouth to his hair; _" And then another bad encounter with some crack-head with a Kalashnikov._"

"_How can you just call it a bad encounter, is there such a thing as a good encounter with any of those things?_" she said incredulously.

"_Special Forces black sense of humour. Just don't ask, we can make fun of anything._" Harry smirked; "_Ian was RAF for a few years before he spent a while with the SAS, became my mentor when I joined, we are still active SAS servicemen, though we're also RAF servicemen, we can wear two badges which makes for fun explanations sometimes._"

The next few weeks were spent with continuous training, aircraft familiarisation as everyone but the ever-exclusive Lancers shared their aircraft. Harry and Nadja often would go out into the city, sometimes accompanied by her friends as he helped them get over the psychological problems of the events of that evening.

Harry enjoyed fleecing he casinos and their rich customers at the various gambling tables, almost never losing a penny as he swept in the money, splitting it between himself and his new German friend, unfortunately, all good things came to an end and they returned to their countries.

The Lancers were a strike force, useful for a few weeks in the beginning of a war to wipe out a much larger aerial force. They were a propaganda force, a set of heroes for the public to grip onto. They weren't particularly useful for sustained warfare, or at least not as useful as massed numbers of aircraft.

With their fighters in storage for airshows and future wars, they shook hands and went their separate ways, back to their units, into retirement, or for Harry, back to the SAS.

**April 2006**

Soaring low and fast, three dark shadows thundered across the dusty lands of Afghanistan. The huge heavy-lift Chinook HC-2 helicopter of 7 Squadron RAF and the Joint Special Forces Aviation Wing flanked by two Lynx AH-7 helicopters, bristling with armament.

Inside the helicopter, behind night-vision goggles, orders were barked and metallic noises issued from guns. Standing up, the obvious leader of the group stood up and made his way to the rear door, a desert shemagh wrapped around his head and face, while a second hung around his neck. Heavy Level IV body armour held two handguns and a custom M14 battle rifle was slung at his side.

"Gents, five minutes, check grenades, ammunition levels, load, chamber and safety. We'll be going in hot into a probably hot zone. Prisoners are unnecessary but if you get a few, I won't mind." he shouted over the thunderous racket of the helicopter.

In the bay of the aircraft were two Land Rovers, festooned with guns. They could barely risk infiltration, they couldn't risk an extract. Climbing into the front of the first car, Harry checked his GPMG and the rifle hung at his side as the driver climbed in, followed by the gunner for the ring-mounted M2 and the gunner on the rear-facing GPMG. The rear vehicle had the same, driver, commander, rear gunner and four men in a compartment under the ring-mounted weapon.

Soon, they swooped down under a barrage of small arms far, the helicopter barely stopping as the two vehicles raced out. Within moments the ring-mounted HMG swung around and let loose a burst of huge bullets. The gunfire stopped. Barely resisting the urge to smirk, Harry kept scanning the area.

"This is Oscar-Mike zero-one, radio check radio check over." he said into the radio.

"Oscar-Mike zero-one this is Papa-November zero-one receiving you loud and clear. Radio check over."

"Papa-November, receiving you loud and clear." Harry replied.

The cars drove for nearly half-an-hour until they came upon a compound in the dry, arid land. A grenade from the HK GMG on the rear Land Rover knocked a large hole in the mud wall and the two cars burst through, six men rolling out of each, the commander, the rear gunner and four passengers as the cars.

"John, right buildings, room-by-room." Harry barked to his bear-like second-in-command.

Inside one of these buildings was a senior commander in the insurgent forces. There was a kill tag on his name and a significant reward for both the soldier and the unit who got him.

Tapping on the rough wooden door, Harry felt two wooden bars jammed into the walls, holding it shut. Crude but effective. Ish. Slung at his back was an ornate dragon head-hilted katana. Drawing it and throwing the custom M14 to a trooper, he slid it through a crack in the door and twisted. One of the boards came free and he swiftly ripped it out. A brief burst of fire took down an insurgent with an AK-47. Sliding aside the bars, he kicked open the door and sheathed the sword, taking back his rifle.

An unarmed man came running around the corner, but the wires coming from his chest was enough for Harry to gun him down with two shots to the head and gesture to his EOD expert to deal with it. Continuing in, he found a room with rough wooden racks holding various items of clothing and sheets, most indistinguishable to the untrained eye from each other.

Then one of the sheets screamed and ran at him, holding a Pulwar scimitar. Once again ripping the katana from the sheath at his back, Harry blocked a blow from above with the sword in his left hand, dropping the rifle as he couldn't get in a shot before the man was almost body-to-body with him.

Reaching up to grip the handle with his right hand, he planted a thunderous blow with his now-empty left hand in the swordsman's stomach before piercing him through the neck with a downward thrust of his own sword. With a brief salute to him as a swordsman, Harry picked up the Pulwar for a trophy and hung it from the pack on his back.

Sheathing the katana again, he picked up his rifle and continued in. Two shots took a gunman through the chest as he edged around a corner. Harry was glad of his night vision as he continued moving into the darkness. A glance around another doorway nearly cost him his head as a bullet nearly took his head off.

He couldn't risk grenades for the pair hidden in that room because a suicide vest would take them with him. Then he began to shrink, clothes melding into his body. In a matter of seconds, a small, fluffy white rabbit sat in his place. Flopping around the corner, he looked up at the two men who gaped at him. And then he leapt. Fifteen seconds of utterly gratuitous violence which had no business being perpetrated by a cute fluffy rabbit later and Harry strode out in human form.

When he'd found his Animagus form, he wondered whether the fates were screwing him over again. Cornered by some blood purists in Dresden while on leave, he'd transformed and, guided by instinct, attacked.

In a final room, Harry found four people crowded in, none of them innocents. Weaving an illusion about himself, Harry disguised himself as the swordsman, drawing the Pulwar. Walking in, he was within two feet of them when he let the illusion drop. It was a simple job to finish the four off with a flurry of blows.

"Boss, infantry closing in, insurgent militia in big trucks and a few technicals escorting them." barked someone in his headset.

Racing out of the building as the rest finished clearing it, Harry raised a monocular to his night-vision headset and quickly assessed the situation.

"Ares, this is Oscar-Mike one-zero, we have overwhelming ground forces, requesting close air support." Harry said hurriedly but calmly. Calm meant the men were calm. Worry meant the men were calm. Panic meant the men panicked.

"Oscar-Mike one-zero, this is Ares, dispatching forces." replied the base radio operator.

A minute later, a loud thunder came. The SAS troopers surrounded the Land Rovers, lowering their shemaghs to take in the air and lifting their goggles to stop the flash of afterburners and bombs causing problems. Identifying two Panavia Tornadoes, Harry watched as several laser-guided bombs obliterated the area where the incoming forces were.

Then suddenly a jet of flame issued from the closest jet followed by two smaller ones he identified as ejector seat rockets.

"Ares, this is Oscar-Mike one-zero, two crew have just ejected from CAS, do we extract?" Harry asked over the radio. The answer was one of the things they hoped never to hear.

"Oscar-Mike one-zero, this is Ares, negative, I repeat negative. We'll have to hope they can walk back but Actual says negative." replied the radio operator.

Glancing around the troopers, Harry saw sneers, angry glares directed at the radio set, cold fury and one by one, they nodded.

Twiddling a knob to disrupt the radio slightly, Harry replied;

"Ares, this is Oscar-Mike one-zero, say again?"

The twiddling caused the message to get progressively worse.

"Dammit, Oscar-Mike one-zero this is Ares Actual." the boss was on the radio; "I say negative, I repeat negative!"

"Ares, this is Oscar-Mike one-zero, radio check, radio check over." Harry said, making the transmissions progressively worse until nothing came through.

Standing to face the troopers, Harry spoke again;

"What a shame, our radio is dead, I think that the last transmission was a yes, despite how badly scrambled it was." he said seriously.

A muted cheer erupted from every man and they piled into the Land Rovers, racing toward where the parachutes could be seen. It took a mere fifteen minutes to reach them, and the troopers jumped out, forming a cordon.

"Check fire!" Harry yelled as he saw two shadowy figures holding weapons on them; "British Army!"

"Luftwaffe." came the reply.

"Ah, it's the jerries." chuckled Harry's second-in-command, a non-politically-correct Yorkshireman, Colour Sergeant John Bourne.

"Come now, no need to be insulting." Harry chided mockingly.

"You're as mocking as I am about everything until you suddenly stopped being insulting to the Germans a few years ago." said Bourne loudly; "I bet it's a woman, a fair flaxen-haired maiden of the Rhine."

"One more word Colour and I'll shoot you." Harry said clearly over the sniggering troopers.

"Ah, somebody's got into wolf-boy's heart." mocked Bourne; "I claim right of parental vetting!"

"That's it, you die." Harry barked to much amusement as the parachutes were rolled into the back of one of the Land Rovers.

"But I don't want to have to hurt you sir, after all your fair flaxen-haired Rhine-maiden might be annoyed." said Bourne unhappily.

Despite the fact they were deep in enemy territory, it did not stop Harry chasing Bourne in circles around the two parked Land Rovers. When someone called out that the cars were loaded, Harry slid into the front bench seat, his goggles glued to the sight of the gun as one of the Luftwaffe personnel slid into the seat next to him, with their driver on the far side.

They raced away, heading to somewhere where they could arrange safe extraction or simply drive the huge distance back to their base. They only had the latter option as their radio was 'dead'. After a particularly rough patch, Harry commented in his radio to Bourne;

"Not quite my Bentley Arnage is it, I miss the leather and the two-hundred miles-an-hour top speed." he moaned.

"Ah sir, you and that Bentley, if I didn't know you have entire garage of classic cars, I'd say you're far to close-minded. Bentley obsessed even." chuckled a voice in the radio on the dashboard.

"Bourne." Harry asked.

"Yes sir?" he replied.

"Shut up."

"Harry?" breathed the passenger, who upon Harry's glance up from his gun shook loose a mane of blonde hair from her helmet.

"Hey Nadja, jeez, wasn't expecting a reunion out in the desert, still quite romantic I must say." Harry said sarcastically until his sights fell on a group of vehicles hidden on the far side of a large outcrop of rocks; "Contact left, technicals, steady." he said calmly.

A moment later all hell broke loose. The second Land Rover accelerated to just ahead and to the right of them. The technicals drove out and Harry barked into his radio;

"Engage!"

Letting loose a continuous burst of fire, he raked a pickup from the gunner in the back, through the cabin and to the engine-block, causing it to burst into flames. A single burst from the HMG over his head set alight another pickup by lighting up the jerry-cans of fuel in the back.

Harry switched target and sprayed the cab of a third while the surprisingly gun-like noise of a LAW rocket echoed from the second vehicle and a projectile blew the truck apart. The four weapons, the HMG, the GMG and the two GPMGs focused on the one remaining vehicle and tore it apart.

"Clear." Harry called over the radio; "Slow for us to reload, don't want to get ambushed reloading."

They drove for nearly an hour more before trouble reared its ugly head. An explosion detonated a little distance from them, enough to buffet the cars and cause tyre-deflation. Drawing to a halt, the gunners began to look for trouble.

"Colour Bourne, you're in command, Mac, with me." Harry ordered, grabbing the anti-material rifle he'd managed to get an early production variant of. The AS50. Grabbing five magazines, he dumped them on Mac and grabbed two more, slotting one into the gun and a second into the storage holder in the stock of the rifle.

The two dashed up a nearby hill into an overwatch position in a group of rocks, covering the team as they repaired the cars. Mac, as his spotter, caught sight of a column of light vehicles chasing after them.

"They don't just give up do they sir." chuckled the gruff Scotsman.

"Yes they do, we don't give them any other option." Harry smirked as he adjusted his scope and braced. At about a thousand yards, he loosed his first shot. A miss. Adjusting, he fired a second shot causing the lead truck to career out of control into a dry wadi running alongside the track before bursting into flames.

Firing twice more, he killed the driver and gunner of a technical. One shot left. That pierced the vehicle's fuel tank just as two more drove by, one on each side. Together the three burst into flames. Reloading, he picked up movement in a patch of scrubby bushes.

A rocket-propelled-grenade poked out, but swiftly was retracted as a bullet rocketed into its bearer, followed by another four as more men appeared from the scrub, each of them swiftly sent on their 'next great adventure'.

"Um, guys." Harry stated into his radio as he saw an unwelcome sight; "And gals, could we hurry this up, I've got a BTR incoming and it ain't friendly."

Immediately, work redoubled below and the cars were near ready to go when the vehicle came into range where Harry was confident he wouldn't just be wasting bullets on the armoured vehicle. Focusing with great intensity, he squeezed the trigger. The first shot slammed into the root of the big machine-gun sticking out of the turret, followed by four aimed at the left-hand-side tyres.

Reloading quickly, he fired again, two shots at the turret and three at the driver's compartment.

"Ready to go sir." called Bourne.

"Mac, let's go." Harry ordered. They rolled up their gear in a large sheet and raced down the hill to the vehicles, throwing the gear in the back and leaping into their seats, the cars racing off the moment they were in.

"Enjoying yourself sir?" asked Bourne over the radio.

"I'm getting too fucking old for this." Harry cursed; "I should have seen that IED."

"Hey kid, you've been in the regiment since you were a teenager, we all make mistakes and nobody else saw that IED either." reprimanded the veteran; "Remember what you signed up for."

"I never signed up for the SAS." Harry chuckled tiredly; "I went for the Paras but MI6 decided to manipulate me and pushed me into the SAS. Didn't find out it was them for a few years, but they wanted me as an intelligence officer, I of course said no and crashed their main-frame when they persisted."

"Always wondered why you spend your leave time in Germany." said Bourne.

"I like it there, my yacht, a small castle on the Rhine with a vineyard, the beer's good, there are less stupid speed limits." replied Harry; "I can more easily keep MI6 out of my hair as well, I do a few favours for the MADs and they keep my nose clean for me."

"And the-" began Bourne before Harry hit the mute on the coms set.

"Couple of hours before we get back to base." the driver commented, glancing at his watch.

Harry stayed awake the whole time as they rode in silence, but eventually Nadja fell asleep on Harry's shoulder as he worked on sabotaging the radio they could use to contact base in such a way that the technicians could verify that it wouldn't have worked.

Upon arrival, they pulled up outside their hastily-erected buildings at the newly-established Camp Bastion to find a very irritated looking American, Ares Actual and a senior British Officer. The first thing that he could say when he spotted Harry helping Nadja, who's limbs had seized up, from the Land Rover, was;

"Your orders were to leave them behind." he blustered.

"Our radio was dead. We didn't receive or acknowledge any such orders." Harry replied coldly, staring down the one-star general.

"I am your superior, my orders go, and you will acknowledge my rank!" continued the American.

"And I'm a Group Captain, acknowledge mine. And if you want to add, I'm also a peer of the realm in a unit of Her Majesty's British Armed Forces operating on Her Majesty's service." his tone was positively wintry; "As it is, the technicians will confirm the radio we use for communications beyond just the cars is dead. We'll deliver the debriefing documents to your office when we see fit."

Turning to his second-in-command, whose eyes had switched from flat, cold anger directed to the American to mischievous upon seeing Nadja leaning against the Land Rover next to his commander, Harry continued;

"By God I hate armchair commanders. John, mission reports, Mac, Selwin, get the vehicle weapons off and cleaned. Bob, ammunition and fuel expenditure report and requisition order to get more. Rest of you clean your weapons, tell Bob how much ammo you've used and get it replaced then get cleaned up and get a bite to eat and some kip, I want the gear ready to go in two hours." Harry ordered; "We probably won't get sent out again that soon, but readiness means ready to go at no notice."

The two exhausted Luftwaffe personnel were packed into an ambulance to get checked out after having banged out of their jet and Harry turned back to the American who he'd been ignoring for about five minutes;

"You there, could you see if someone could bring down some food, we haven't eaten more than some field biscuits since yesterday evening." he 'requested' before swivelling around

Unsurprisingly, the food never arrived so he ordered it himself before driving over to the base hospital, slipping through by borrowing a white coat. Nobody challenged him, just assuming he was a base medic.

With a touch of Legilimancy, a skill he'd honed since he left the wizarding world, Harry quickly found the small room where Nadja was. Making his way over, he rapped smartly on the door.

"_Since you're evidently not a doctor by the way you knock, you can come in and relieve the monotony of being poked and prodded for hours on end and assessed by the shrinks._" she drawled from the other side.

Harry walked in, still clad in heavy sand-logged combats and body-armour.

"_You sound enthusiastic for company._" he replied.

"_You have no idea._" sighed Nadja; "_The doctor from the Luftwaffe is saying I'll probably be pulled off fast jet duty due to the ejection. I've pretty much built my life around this, but of course the male-supremacists will make it out that the aircraft was lost because of there being a female crew-member which will launch a counter-attack from the feminists stating that it wasn't my fault and that it was probably a male conspiracy. I seriously don't want to end up flying a desk. And of course there'll be an enquiry into the aircraft loss._"

"_As always, my personal camera was running through the op and I'll submit the film footage of the incident._" said Harry, perching on the edge of her bed; "_Though I'll have to delete the orders to leave you behind and the sabotage of the radio._"

"_WHAT!_" she yelled; "_You were only a few miles from us and command tried to leave us hundreds of miles deep in enemy territory?_"

"_Yep, I'll probably loose my job over this, but the orders 'weren't received' so the rescue went ahead._" Harry replied indifferently.

"_Oh God, I hope that it doesn't cost you your job._" frowned Nadja.

"_Hey, this isn't the first time I've broken regulations, you might have heard of the 2005 mess in Iraq with two captured SAS troopers, command wouldn't give the green light to a rescue so I authorized it._" Harry chuckled, knowing that the room wasn't bugged and his own wandless silencing charms on the walls, ceiling, floor and door would stop any other listening; "_What's more likely is I'll get dumped in one of the reserve SAS units, after all I've done about a decade in the military, two years of it with the RAF and the rest with the SAS._"

"_Bloody bureaucrats._" she hissed.

"_But anyway, you know there are lots of non-military jobs where ex-fast jet pilots are in high demand?_" asked Harry.

"_You know I'm an observer, navigator and weapons officer?_" Natja asked back.

Harry just gave her a 'don't be stupid' look.

"_Okay, I'm fast jet trained with about a hundred hours at the controls of Tornadoes, but the Luftwaffe don't have female pilots so none of that is on the record. I have no civilian licensing and I've only been in the job about the same amount of time as you._" she sighed; "_And on the subject of how long you and I have been in the military, you're the equivalent of an Oberst, a colonel and you're I believe the second youngest in RAF history._"

"_Mostly classified, but since I'm filthy stinking rich, titled and whatnot, the rewards for the suicide missions they send us on and I end up doing something stupidly heroic either comes in medals I can never wear because the ops aren't officially acknowledged or promotions. I started active ops halfway through '97 until 2001 when the Lancers began. We went into reserve just after the American exercise and I came back here. Haven't bothered with leave in either of those periods._" he chuckled and then pulled out a phone as it dinged noisily; "_Sorry about this, it's my emergency phone._"

A few minutes of silence as Harry paced and someone evidently spoke to him on the other end of the phone. Slowly, a malicious smirk built across his face, a shark-like grin which promised grievous bodily harm to somebody as he hung up.

"_The Taliban council have got word I was involved in the operation, somewhere there is either a leak or an eyewitness I missed but they've upped the bounty on me, very flattering. It's pretty big so I'm going to fake my death. A few guys have died over the last few years and not all of their families are able to sustain themselves. We have a once-per-tour whip-round to raise funds for these families, I've always contributed quite a bit to it, but this might help them more. And it'd be a big one in the face of the insurgents._"

A few hours later, Harry woke up in a chair by Nadja's bed by his phone silently vibrating in his pocket. Pulling it out and hitting the accept button, he waited until John's tones came through.

"We've got an op sir, sorry to drag you away from your Rhine-maiden but we're leading up to a massive push to the south." he said.

"I'll be down John." Harry replied softly, letting the Rhine-maiden comment slide. Apparently not softly enough as Nadja's eyes opened.

"_You're off again._" she said, it was a statement, not a question.

"_Probably going to be doing a mission-a-day at the rate I'm expecting._" he sighed; "_Maybe when this is over, I'll look you up in whatever god-forsaken hellhole our jobs and duty takes us._"

"_Or even in our respective home countries._" laughed Nadja, a soft, musical sound.

"_I spend more of my free time in Germany than I do Britain._" Harry deadpanned.

"For luck." she said, for the first time in English as they'd been conversing in German since the SAS had picked them up. Sat up, she reached out a hand, gently caressing his face before snatching a brief kiss from him before pushing him toward the door; "_As you said job and duty, off you go._"

Scowling at her, he said;

"_I'll get you for that, tease._"

"_Bite me._" she replied with a pleased smirk.

"_And more._" he chuckled and walked off.

The southern offensive of the Afghan war reached a bloody climax in September with Italian Special Forces operating on the coattails of the SAS who had been operating every night into Taliban zones in small numbers, hitting high-value targets and causing chaos.

With repercussions still ringing in from the suspected disobeying of orders, though totally unprovable, a few members of the Coalition Command were trying to cause trouble for the SAS so Harry transferred to the reserve and finally cached in the immense amount of leave he'd accumulated.

**December 2007**

Major Karin-Natja Falke, or Retired Major as she bitterly reminded herself, walked down the street in the town she'd moved to after leaving the Luftwaffe. Though she'd managed to get civilian qualifications and even had flown aircraft in a few Hollywood films, she missed the activity of military life. She wasn't blind to her own good looks, especially not with the number of men trying to get 'friendly' with her, but in her years, to only one man could she entrust her heart.

Untameable raven hair, twinkling emerald eyes, roguish grin and slight shadow of stubble, she was barely conscious of her movements as she walked into a cafe and ground to a halt upon seeing that same person, wearing cargo trousers, combat boots, a t-shirt and a grey-and-blue Burberry shirt undone over it, with a sidearm tucked into his waistband.

"_You really ought not to have the same weekly habits, it's predictable and a weakness._" he chided mockingly, the same mischievous twinkle present.

"Harry!" she exclaimed, running over and grabbing him in a crushing hug, releasing him as he winced.

"_Mind, still healing from a few injuries, just got out of Afghanistan, it's been hell out there since you left. We've been operating usually ten times a week, not usually getting more sleep than we can to and from the objectives. The operations are the good part, the offensive, but we're coming under attack daily, rockets fired into or at patrols, into the base, suicide bombers._" he said tiredly. Suddenly, she noticed that however handsome he was, Harry was pale, drawn and had grey bags under his eyes as well as the padding of a number of bandages under his shirt; "_I took a few weeks in Cyprus, trying to get out of battlefield mentality, but I've been in a continuous state of a hundred-and-ten-or-more percent ever since we disbanded the Lancers. That's getting on for about two-and-a-half years._"

"_You've burnt yourself out._" Nadja stated.

"_Kind of, I relentlessly pushed myself, and when a squadron went off rotation I simply transferred to the next one. Apart from the period from midway through '01 to '04 when I was one of the Lancers, I've been constantly in a warzone since '97, and sometimes I wonder if we've really made any progress._" sighed Harry.

"_How can you say that, I may not be operational any more but I've seen the news, the big push south, the rumours of British Special Forces everywhere, how can you ask if you've made any progress?_" she partly admonished, partly asked.

"_Think about it. I'd been operational since '97, in '01, there was the 9/11 bombings. We attacked anything resembling a terrorist, and in July of '05 there was the bombings in London. I may not live there, but Britain was my home. Innocent civilians murdered because some psycho wants his seventy-two virgins_." Harry spat; "_And just in the last three months, I've had two targeted assassination attempts at me and a number of attacks aimed at my troop because we/I stand in the way of a world-wide Islamic Caliphate. In January, we were in Iraq, in just one month, between two-hundred-and-fifty and three-hundred people were killed, only a handful soldiers or police. We were back in Iraq after the end of the southern offensive in Afghanistan, and on November 23__rd__, over two hundred were killed in a series of bombings with a similar number injured._"

"_But how many didn't get to perpetuate their violence because you and your men were hitting them hard every night?_" Nadja asked fiercely, glancing around embarrassedly when she realised that her voice was quite loud.

Harry stood up and offered her his hand, fishing keys out of his pocket with his other hand.

"_My place is about twenty-minute's drive from here_." he stated, handing a bill to the waiter with a 'keep the change' gesture.

Remembering how Harry had helped her and her friends overcoming their psychological problems after the Vegas Incident, Nadja decided the least she could do was help him over his crisis of faith, in himself and the fight that he and his men led.

"_The thing is, during the southern push, we were wiping out local leaders and their militias every night, and often during the day, two operations a day usually except for the weekends when we only got one a day, but the day that we 'gained control' of the south, a British patrol was ambushed with three dead. How does that make me feel that the line infantry can't be safe even with the continuous offensive in the shadows. There's a covert war going on, it's eternal, there'll always be a psycho with a gun, and whether we're acknowledged or not, we and our peers in other countries will be called on to put them down. Thing is, this Hydra, when you cut a head off, two replace it._" he sighed, running a hand down his face as they walked toward a dark blue Bentley.

"_You're specialists at unconventional warfare aren't you, ever tried cutting off the body instead of the head?_" Nadja smirked.

Harry let loose a dry chuckle, then noticed the worried look directed at the Bentley.

"_Don't worry, I don't always drive like an SAS serviceman who's told the beer's running out._" he commented.

"_Are all of the SAS insane or have I just met all the insane ones?_" asked Nadja.

"_Most of us are mostly insane. I once saw a knife-fight erupt over a box of Lindt chocolates, luckily they used practice fighting knives and not the blades we all carry._" Harry answered as he slid into the driver's seat.

The drive was taken in companionable silence, and Harry's place turned out to be an elegant fortress overlooking the Rhine. At first glance, it looked somewhat small and fairytale-like, but as they came closer, Nadja realised that with two curtain walls, artillery bastions overlooking the river and a huge keep with jutting turrets, it wasn't a palatial folly, but a full-on fortress.

Harry simply prodded a button on a TV-like control as they purred through the vineyard that occupied the sweeping descent to the river, dotted with cottages for the estate workers. Passing the bastions, the jagged chasm from which the first set of sheer walls rose was bridged with the drawbridge descending on chains from the gatehouse, a portcullis being raised and a pair of huge doors swung open.

A second portcullis and set of doors led them through the second curtain wall to the courtyard and green, the keep sat a little distance back. The green was occupied by a Westland Gazelle, while a stable-block was in use as a garage.

"_Holy-_" spluttered Nadja.

"_When I bought it, the place was on the point of collapse, so I think in return for preserving a bit of history I can indulge myself, and it's very secure, with my bird parked over there, you can't bring another helicopter in safely, so no infiltration from the air unless by parachute, but you'd likely get blown into a wall or outside the walls. Otherwise the only way in is through the gatehouse, and the curtain walls would have difficulty being breached by a tank._" Harry chuckled, not mentioning a number of wards which would make Gringotts and anyone with an interest in rare, esoteric and foreign magics green with envy, as well as the fact the walls couldn't be broken because of the enchantments on them; "_I've inherited a bit of money, but I transferred a comfortable sum from it and began investing. I've never actually touched the main fortune except to leave an investment manager in charge of it._"

Abandoning the car outside the main doors, Harry once again used the controller in his pocket to open the castle. Inside, there was a small entrance hall (only the size of a small house) which looked through into a much larger hall brightly decorated in a distinctly medieval style with deep colouring covering the walls (see the Kirche Kevelaer). Heading up a short flight of stairs, that gave way to soft colours, deep carpets and a selection of art, mainly landscapes which Nadja, no fan of art, had to admit were quite atmospheric.

Harry's study had a huge carved desk in one corner but the rest was taken up with a motley selection of rather faded-looking furniture, something she noted around the SAS barracks in Iraq. Apparently it was just one of their 'things'.

"_Don't worry, I'm not a spoiled brat, just with the castle I saw it, fell in love with the land and felt that seeing it fall into ruin would be stupid. The Bentley is a runabout I use, as an officer, I couldn't be seen driving the scruffy old BMW I used use until it died. The yacht was kind-of the only splurge I did, but again it was going to end up being scrapped._" Harry chuckled as he dropped himself onto a beanbag seat.

Natja sat on the Persian rug, her tight jeans tightening to show off her figure. The white blouse also tightened somewhat. She was pleased to see Harry's face become absolutely emotionless. It meant he was suppressing something. For Harry, the enticing figure, the cloudy grey eyes and the sheet of blonde hair tied up in a knot at the base of her neck made Nadja irresistible. Since '04, she'd been a close friend, even when they had to converse briefly on burner phones or through intermediaries.

"_I must admit, you have quite the home Harry_." she smirked, leaning back on the soft rug.

"_I though, must admit that with almost all of my adult life having been spent in the Middle East, that I've not really spent much time here_." Harry chuckled before going over to his liquor cabinet.

"_Starting already?_" asked Nadja with a raised eyebrow; "_It's still morning_."

"_I tell you, in all seriousness, that when I got back off tour, I was a wreck, couldn't sleep for days and kept on seeing insurgents and IEDs littering the castle. Ended up getting stupendously drunk then realised it wasn't doing any good, tried to pull myself together, and it's beginning to work. Want anything?_" replied Harry.

"_Would it be too cheesy to ask for a Martini, shaken not stirred?_" she teased; "_Gin and tonic if you've got the latter cold_."

Pulling open a cabinet which in fact contained a fridge-freezer, he retrieved a couple of ice cubes and dumped them in a glass with a healthy dose of gin before adding the cold tonic and handed it to Nadja. Retrieving himself a glass of brandy, he went back to his beanbag chair.

"I'm glad that you're not on ops anymore, even if it was at the cost of your job, but you've pushed yourself too hard." she stated, switching to English which she'd studied after meeting Harry, receiving a raised eyebrow at her slightly accented but flawless speaking; "One mistake and it's your life, or someone else's life. And frankly if you died I'd have to find one of those seance people to summon your spirit just so I could rant at you."

Harry choked on his brandy momentarily before giving her an amused scowl.

"I'm too bloody-minded to die yet. Anyway, bomb and gun isn't on my list of ways to die. Meteorite strike is at the top of the list." he replied.

"Sometimes I worry about you." said Nadja, shaking her head at his antics.

"You love me still!" declared Harry, throwing his arms wide in an all-encompassing gesture.

"And I still haven't worked out why." she countered with a smirk.

Raising an eyebrow, he tipped his glass toward her, she'd won that round.

"But returning to less pleasant topics, how're you holding up." Nadja asked, resting a hand on his arm; "Sorry, that's not a very tactful way of saying it."

"No worries, but I'm fine." Harry replied, his smile no longer reaching his eyes until he caught sight of the raised eyebrow. It was surprising how the two could have a conversation with just facial movements. "I'm fine. Fragile, insecure, neurotic and exhausted. Overall real great." he finished sarcastically.

After being silenced with a sharp glare, he said;

"Sorry, still not doing great and my emotions are all over the place." he apologised abashedly; "But yeah, utterly screwed up, mentally and physically. Suffering from fatigue, but I can't sleep easily, it usually requires me to reach the point of exhaustion to get there. My ribs are slowly healing after we got blasted by an RPG, my flak jacket and body-armour took took the brunt of the blast. That was just a few days after a psycho with a Dragunov decided to gun me down. Even with body-armour, a 7.62 by 54 stings like a bitch. So excuse me if I _don't_ end up ravishing you today."

Harry was pleased to see Nadja blush and tip her glass toward him. One all.

"But apart from my physical and mental scars, I've just been wondering whether it's all been worth it. Sure, I met you and I wouldn't swap that for every bar of gold and every diamond in the world, but otherwise I've made a few friendly comrades, but my old life has been utterly abandoned, I keep the barest contact with a few old friends, but otherwise I've lived in combat since '97." Harry sighed, gazing at the ceiling as he downed the last of his brandy and set aside the glass; "I've got a load of medals which I can't wear in public because the Ministry of Defence can't or won't acknowledge. I've got a collection of scars which make cage-fighters green with envy, and since I don't really need it, I've donated my SAS income to various military charities."

"That you've received so little and taken so little but still kept going speaks a great deal of the person who you are." Nadja replied; "Under a conceived notion of some kind of duty, you've worn yourself, stupidly may I add, into the ground. That you've done that isn't for no reason, you've got to have had a reason."

"Seeing the number of men, women and children dead. You can expect that in a warzone. Collateral occurs, however distasteful it is, but for it to have happened in a 'safe zone', thousands of miles across oceans, deserts, mountains and jungles, people aren't safe from these extremists. I try to at least minimize that danger." he shrugged, gaze still firmly stuck on the ceiling.

"But you think you haven't done enough." she surmised; "Let's see. The SAS if I remember correctly is made of three regiments and a total of ten squadrons. Each squadron had four troops each of between a dozen and sixteen men. You share the command of one troop with Bourne, I know officially you are the commander, but you still take advice and work with your deputy. So, head of up to sixteen men split into four four-man patrols. You command a quarter of your squadron, a fortieth of the entire SAS."

"Yeah." Harry replied.

"You're one man in charge of a fortieth of _one_ of Britain's special forces! You aren't supreme field commander of all the special forces in the world! Don't try and save the entire world, there is only so much sixteen men can do, and you and your troop exceed that by far!" Nadja said sharply, standing up and sitting on the edge of the beanbag chair with Harry; "You've been a great friend to me for years, but sometimes you're a stubborn, thick-headed bastard. You cannot save everyone, you may be trained, skilled and whatnot, but people kill people and a thinly-spread group of special operators can dissuade them, cut off the snake's head or cut of the snake's body, whether we like it or not, people will kill people. And killing yourself in the process is a stupid way to try and save the world."

After a minute of silence, Harry snaked an arm around her waist, enjoying the close company as she rested her head on his shoulder.

"Thanks, I needed that." he said eventually.

"Don't worry Harry, you're a great soldier, but no lone soldier, or even a single army can save the world. I'm an aerial combatant, not a ground soldier, but I saw how you handled the extract when I was shot down, I doubt every commander would keep his cool as you did. And you're a better person. You told me how you try and visit the families of the lost soldiers, you help support them, but I don't want to loose Harry to Group Captain Potter. There's two of you, the man and the professional soldier, I know you can't get rid of the latter but you need not to simply become a gun-wielding drone." she said softly.

"I know, I've struggled with that on occasion." he replied; "I've never told you much about my childhood, why I joined the military. Too much is classified or I simply don't want to go over it, still don't but I've wanted to share some of it. My parents were killed when I was only a year old. I was going on sixteen when I finally caught up with and killed the bastard, though I'd been trying since I was eleven. Thing was that my parent's old headmaster managed to get guardianship of me by 'losing' their will, and he dumped me on my maternal aunt who was rather jealous of my mother. Of course the fact I was left on their doorstep only hours after my parents died, with only a letter in the middle of November didn't help. They were strapped for cash initially, so of course, I was seen as the root of all their problems. While not abusive, they were fairly neglectful so when the headmaster came along looking like a reincarnation of Merlin with his academic robes and long white beard, of course I initially looked up to the manipulative bastard until I realized he was trying to get hold of my political power and fortune by having my parents' murderer kill me, then he would wade in and avenge me, and a fake will would give my money and power to my 'long time mentor'. I got my exams done after my sixteenth birthday, a fairly good lot too, before enlisting in the Paras. Of course a new manipulator came on scene, MI6 wanted to recruit me young and so they dumped me, a scrawny sixteen-year-old on the SAS. I pulled through all the courses and earned my place with the regiment." Harry narrated the bare-bones of his life, having for a long time wanted to share his life with someone else.

"Remarkably similar, deceased parents before I really knew them, neglectful adoptive relatives, had to build my own life up from nought. Joined the Luftwaffe, waded through a ton of sexism and paper until I got flying, while a few of the males who weren't at least indifferent to women taught us to fly at the controls, not just as weapons operators." Nadja replied, cutting short the narration of her own life; "Not as dramatic as yours but unpleasant none-the-less." she chuckled bitterly.

"Truly Per Ardua ad Astra, through adversity to the stars." Harry chuckled as Nadja shifted to perch on his lap.

It wasn't a conscious decision, nor did either know who initiated it, but their lips met in a blaze of passion.

"I've wanted to do that for years." Harry whispered to her.

"Why not make up for lost time?" Nadja replied; "After all, we're not on active duty any longer, none of the problems of relationships over long distances in the most dangerous hellholes the brass could find."

"Why not indeed."

**March 2008**

It was mid-spring and Harry had finally healed up properly, as even magic couldn't simply heal the shockwave injuries from an explosive blast in a flick of a wand. It took weeks for him to regain his usual levels of fitness, and at the same time, the great deal of friendship and trust between him and Natja had laid the firm foundations for their relationship, which continued to build.

Unfortunately, he was back in the UK as somebody had kidnapped a friend of one of the Cabinet, and tortured them under the Cruciatus curse before killing them with a blood-boiling curse before dumping them on the steps of 10, Downing Street as a macabre lesson that 'muggles were beneath wizards'. Of course, lessons like that rarely work on governments, they tend to get a bit irritated and send angry commandos after you.

So after a few days, he'd worked out the perpetrators and played You've Got Mail Bombs (2008 edition). Though he didn't like the occasional hit-job of the SAS, it was necessary and he didn't really see a problem with blowing up Malfoy Manor, Narcissa had long-since left and was now spending her middle years in the South of France while Draco had never married.

And of course, Lucius had bribed his way out of Azkaban after being captured in the Department of Mysteries.

Walking across London from his Knightsbridge townhouse, Harry drew a few looks from people as he was openly carrying a sidearm on his custom desert combats, and of course the fire-wreathed Excalibur on his beret drew a few more looks. Facing an obviously veteran SAS operator wearing a flak jacket, body-armour and openly carrying firearms is not conducive to confidence.

Nodding respectfully as the police flanking the entrance to 10 Downing Street snapped to attention, he walked in. Occasionally, he did enjoy the touch of respect given to veteran, front-line soldiery, not just the brass but those who had fought their way through mud and blood.

Striding through several hallways, he came to a familiar doorway, and paused a moment as he heard stern tones echoing through the room beyond.

"-Magical terrorist attacks stop! Clear your house or we will."

"Not that I don't sympathise sir, but what can muggles do about wizarding terrorists?" asked a familiar voice.

Harry was chuckling deeply as he walked in.

"Never took you for a wizarding supremacist Sirius." he muttered before speaking up; "To answer your question, quite a lot. Look at what happened to Malfoy after all." he said, glancing between Director Bones, Sirius Black and Gordon Brown; "Must say I'm surprised Fudge or Dumbledore aren't here to make sure their pawns are behaving."

"You didn't tell them about the Malfoy debacle did you?" he stated switching back from looking at Brown to the two magicals.

"I resent being described as a pawn to anybody sir." said Bones; "But you're evidently behind the times, Dumbledore died, Fudge got kicked out leaving myself and my husband running the Ministry and the Wizengamot respectively. And I'd like to know what you mean about the Malfoy family."

"They decided to send us a Christmas present by torturing and killing a friend of one of my Ministers. I in turn sent a group of commandos after them." explained the PM, raising an eyebrow at Harry who was wearing a glamour over his face; "They blew up Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire and with it the two remaining members of the Malfoy Family."

"Anyway, if there's no Fudge lining his pockets with pureblood gold and no Dumbledore preaching about second chances, can't you just chuck the criminals in Azkaban." Harry asked.

"Unfortunately, though I am Chief Warlock simply because I'm both a pureblood and a grey wizard, neither dark nor light, I can't really get at the ultra-conservatives who are running the Wizengamot." said Sirius.

"Then we go back to option two as I previously suggested Prime Minister, mobilise military force against them." Harry said, turning to Brown.

"You realise this would have to be Black ops, no official acknowledgement." he warned.

"I've done it before, the wizards I remember were exceedingly arrogant and self-assured when a bomb through the roof and they were as dead as any non-magical." replied Harry; "Also, as a peer and the unusual rights of my own, have you had a look at the military proposals I offered."

"Yes, it's possible that it'll go ahead." replied Brown.

There were few real seers in the world, but an accident with a Timeturner he'd been fiddling with had sent Harry a good distance into what could have been the future before he sent himself back. After collecting a bit of information.

It was unfortunate, but the British non-magical government was nearly as bad as the magical one, always restricting military budgets, not caring where or when it cost lives and livelihoods. What he'd done was use a few compulsions to move for the purchase of six Arleigh Burke Class Destroyers to accompany the six Type 45 Air Defence Destroyers, concentrating on land-attack warfare with missiles.

It would strengthen ties between the two navies and part of the agreement was that the Americans would also hand over two retired Supercarriers to the British. The F-35 program would never drag the British down as another proposal would bring in a number of Dassault Rafale fighters for the new carriers.

While he'd enjoyed future knowledge, Harry had promptly obliviated all but a few bits of it, just companies to invest in and other jobs to do. He didn't want that knowledge hanging over his head like a Sword of Damocles.

"As the PM said, you've got six months to sort out the wizarding world. Remember that despite the Statute of Secrecy, Her Majesty is the ultimate authority, and though I am hesitant to start a civil war, our special forces know where all the grim pureblood manor and _town-houses _are, and we take terrorist attacks badly and would have little hesitation to leave said buildings smouldering." Harry said coldly; "The wizarding world needs to get rid of the prejudice, the supremacist views and understand this is not the medieval era. Britain, our allies in France and America, as well as the Russians and Chinese officially ave the weapons which can destroy the entire planet. Also, have you noticed how many 'muggleborns' as you call them, stay in the wizarding world?"

"Too few." sighed Bones.

"Damn straight. We've got an entire regiment of wizards in the Army who do all sorts from magical engineering to warding military bases. Non-magical Britain is moving to the forefront of the world while magical Britain is wallowing in a swamp of genetic idiocy and petty hatred." Harry replied, adding ; "Six months. Oh and Padfoot, didn't know you had it in you."

He vanished silently, in fact simply apparating to the far side of the door. Harry still despised the inherent laziness many magicals displayed. A brisk walk across London was invigorating while it did the civilians good to know there were still soldiers out there, he also enjoyed seeing the world instead of just teleporting from place to place. In general, when being a wizard in one of his several disguises, he'd happily use wizarding methods to get about, but the rest of the time, he'd drive or fly.

And Natja approved when he told her of magic and his life interacting with it. Though initially a bit hurt he'd hidden it from her, she'd quickly realised why, and how little it really played a part in his life. Talking of Natja, he came up a few yards from one of their favourite restaurants where he saw his Bentley Arnage parked outside.

"Hey sweetheart." he said as she stepped out onto the pavement and delivered a searing kiss.

"I thought now that I'm back from the set that we could have an evening out." she said as Harry wrapped an arm around her. Her dream of flying hadn't crashed and burned, but in fact taken off like an SR-71, now she was flying everything from helicopters, light monoplanes to fast jets for the various film studios.

That Harry had taken to turning up unannounced in a variety of high-performance aircraft was a great source of amusement for them both. Especially the occasions when not Harry, but the Black Prince put in an appearance in his MiG that the RAF had allowed him free use of.

Quickly stripping off his body-armour and flak jacket, he stowed them in the back of the car, leaving him in a t-shirt with the undone desert camouflage shirt concealing the pistol in his waistband.

As their meal was drawing to a halt, a man limped in wearing a long overcoat and wearing a pair of shades which covered his eyes completely. The rather stringy greying hair was tied back and a huge number of scars were visible as he approached Harry's table.

"Good evening Alastor." Harry said, finishing his crème brûlée.

"Evening kid, boss and her boy-toy are coming over here from a meeting, if you don't want to be found you'll need to scarper." grunted the scarred man.

Harry glanced at Nadja and smirked, a look that usually was followed by some form of chaos.

"Thanks Moody." he said and called the waiter over, paying for a drink for the old Auror; "Head out to the car Nadja, I'll follow in a minute."

Pulling out a small sheet of paper from a pocket and a fountain pen, he wrote out an elegant but meaningless note. At least to the un-astute observer.

_Where Lion's cub, the serpent's master sits at dawn's first light by the snake-like water._

_Where an eye and an isle aren't so different, into the dawn he gazes._

Chuckling sinisterly, he gestured over a waiter.

"A bottle of Château Lafite Rothschild for table seven, charge it to my tab." he ordered; "Deliver this note to the bearded gentleman and say 'The Earl of Stromkeld wishes his Lordship the Earl of Blackmore well and hopes that he isn't feeling too grim.'"

With that, Harry swept out of the restaurant and activated his mobile phone to watch the magical video bug he'd planted watch the chaos.

It was early the next morning when a sleepless Sirius and Amelia finally solved the accursed riddle.

Lion's cub, a Gryffindor. Serpent's master, a Parselmouth. Sits at dawn's first light. Fairly obvious. Snake-like water. It finally occurred to them that there was the Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park. Where an eye and an isle aren't so different. A small island in the lake looked like an eye from above. Into dawn he gazes. He'd be facing east.

They rushed out as the sun came out, finding nothing but a small piece of paper pinned to a tree on the island.

_Three meanings of the word bridge._

_Where two transport bridges come together._

_Encased in metal and on water in the heart of Britannia near the House of titles._

With Amelia having to go into work, they knew they only had a finite amount of time, so they quickly solved it. A crossing bridge, a game of bridge, the bridge of a ship. Sirius realised that of the three he knew knew of the riddle, all of them were lords.

Bridges for crossing rivers were to do with transport and so were the bridges of ships. Encased in metal and on water meant a metal ship afloat. The heart of Britannia they assumed was London, and as the Bones, Potters and Blacks held Lordships, it was fairly easy to work it out. The House of Lords. Parliament.

After searching HMS Belfast for a while and spending the rest of the time imagining what he'd do with such a great invention as the battleship (not something you want to know), Sirius opened the latest piece of paper written in the same elegant slanting writing.

And screamed.

Harry spent the next few weeks taunting Sirius and on occasion Amelia by leading them through some of Britain's greatest heritage and cultural landmarks, art galleries, fortresses, even leaving him at an airshow on one occasion where he was displaying as the Black Prince.

Finally in the middle of the Forest of Dean, Sirius broke.

"GOD HARRY! BE MERCIFUL! I WAS TOO ARROGANT, YOU'RE RIGHT, THE MUGGLE WORLD IS FAR AHEAD OF OURS." he screamed at the sky as Amelia looked on from the bottom of a tree against which she was leaning.

Another piece of paper appeared with a pop, causing Amelia to groan as she picked it up and read it out loud;

"Congratulations, you seriously ought to have joined the non-magical law enforcement because it would have been far easier to search for security camera images of me. However, due to your utterly stupid levels of devotion to hunting yours truly, I hereby grant you entry to my Fidelius charmed homes. Safe-house Lima-Oscar-zero-one is to be found at eleven-and-a-half Princes Gardens, London. Safe-house Lima-Oscar-zero-two occupies the entirety of fifty-seven, Prince Consort Road, but is not Fidelius charmed."

"Thank God!" Sirius exclaimed until his wife groaned.

"He continues to say that he cannot guarantee he is actually there, but welcomes us to continue our amusingly futile attempts to find him, especially as it provided good blackmail material for leverage against the Minister and Chief Warlock. He also recommends bringing a group of curse-breakers." she sighed.

Unfortunately, they were too fool-hardy to take that advice, and then realised too late that the Fidelius charm on one of the houses couldn't be breached without the keeper's note. Which was long since destroyed in one of their attempts to get through the houses.

Harry had riddled each house with traps, most only slightly lethal and highly embarrassing, though he'd touched on evil by hiring Peeves as security chief.

It was a few months later and Harry had mostly forgotten about the prank when the wards on his castle on the Rhine went off, redirecting two Portkey using travellers into the river below. Natja walked into his study, wearing a pair of _very_ tight jeans, a tube top and a midnight-blue velvet choker with Celtic patterns woven into it with silver. As ever, she was stunning.

Sometimes, he wondered how he came to be deserving of the companionship of someone with such a beautiful personality... and body. Walking over to his desk, Harry prodded a button on a small remote. A large sheet of slightly blue-tinted glass rose from a slot in the wood, and he quickly began to type on an invisible keyboard.

A few keystrokes confirmed his identity and allowed him to access the ward control. Checking the magical signatures of the two travellers, Harry set them to bypass the wards and sat back to watch. About an hour later, they lay in deck chairs with two empty on the green, feasting on popcorn.

"Sorry Sirius, but I was bored." Harry explained at the glare directed at him by the-now Chief Warlock as he staggered over and slumped into a deckchair, followed far more elegantly by Amelia Bones-Black.

"You were bored, so you decided to relieve said boredom by sending us running around Europe chasing elusive clues at to where you were." she deadpanned.

"Actually, that was an introduction to modern culture. The trapped houses were the product of my boredom." Harry corrected from over Natja's shoulder as she lay on his lap.


End file.
